Democrats Rail against a Fictional Supreme Court

The media are going to get things wrong anyway, and regular people aren’t going to take time to read the opinions, so let ’er rip.

Last year, a Marquette University Law School poll asked people what they thought of the individual justices on the U.S. Supreme Court. Only three of the justices (Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor, and Brett Kavanaugh) were familiar enough such that at least 50 percent of respondents were “able to rate” them. Thirty-eight percent felt able to rate the top dog, Chief Justice John Roberts. Only 29 percent of respondents were able to rate Neil Gorsuch, with the numbers coming in at 28 percent for Elena Kagan and a paltry 26 percent for Samuel Alito. At this point, more people would probably guess Dylan Mulvaney was a member of the High Court.

But while most political observers would take those statistics as a reason to drink a tall glass of Wild Turkey, Democrats see ignorance as an opportunity. Why not take Americans’ empty brains and fill them with tales of a fictional Supreme Court led by right-wing extremists and corrupt Manchurian justices who exist only to do the bidding of big-money donors?

Granted, it is much easier to do battle with a Supreme Court that exists only in your head. Reading opinions takes a long time (yuck!) and requires formulating nuanced responses (ugh!).